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More U.S. Troops Head for Philippines

Increasing Cooperation with Manila



Counter-Terrorism Training



Friday, April 19, 2002
(4:11 PM ET)
By Charles Aldinger
Reuters

About 600 American soldiers are currently deployed in the country's south to train Filipino soldiers in counter terrorism and help defeat the Abu Sayyaf rebels holding a U.S. missionary couple and a Filipina nurse for more than 10 months on Basilan.

WASHINGTON -- Reuters
The United States on Saturday will send 340 Navy engineers ashore to build roads and aircraft landing zones on a southern Philippine island stronghold of Muslim rebels linked to the al Qaeda network, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Announcement of Saturday's deployment to Basilan Island followed approval of the Philippine government. It will bring to about 1,000 the number of U.S. troops in the country's politically volatile south, where Manila is fighting Muslim separatist groups and kidnap-for-ransom gangs.

The counter-terrorism exercises on the impoverished, rebellion-racked island of Basilan represent the biggest expansion of the United States war on terror since the rout of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told Reuters the troops would begin going ashore from the U.S. Navy landing ship Germantown at about 7:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. EDT) Saturday Philippine time to aid in U.S. military support of the Philippine government's battle against Abu Sayyaf rebels.

The United States has linked the Abu Sayyaf to Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, alleged masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
(More: iWon.com News Source)
2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan